


Locked

by Capucine



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: AoU Compliant, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Drabble, Families of Choice, Gen, Love, Sad, Short One Shot, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 11:40:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6955018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capucine/pseuds/Capucine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha is glad to have found Clint. Or rather, to have been found by him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Locked

**Author's Note:**

> Just a sad oneshot with some fluff?

The thing they didn’t understand, couldn’t, was that the Natasha didn’t introspect. Not if she could help it.

When you went through those sorts of horrors, you locked it away in a box in your head. You padlocked it, threw away the key, and threw the motherfucker into the deepest pit you could find. You chose to forget the details. To be aware it happened, in the sense that you were aware of the Wizard of Oz movie and its plotline.

Clint helped to lock that box. To take her away from it, to look at the pit, pick up a shovel, and say, ‘How much dirt you want on this?’

His family was hers, in so many ways. Laura was not the same as a mother to her, and somehow not quite a sister, but Natasha could recognize the familial connection. He only had one kid then. One very affectionate kid.

And the fact he trusted her, _her_ , not to blow his secret and endanger the people most important to him in the whole wide world? She couldn’t assume he was naïve this time. Clint knew the kinds of people she knew, the things she’d done—and he trusted her.

He and Laura helped her through the night terrors, through the occasional slipping, cracking mirror feeling that she’d mistaken everything and she was about to die.

Natasha couldn’t imagine ever having this herself—children, a spouse, a home of her own with all the things that came with it. But she would never stop being grateful Clint shared his with her.

She had never been entirely bluffing about owing him.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah. I saw AOU, but haven't seen CW yet. I'll never be caught up at this rate. DX
> 
> Still being sad, but it's good I have over 200 stories now. It makes me smile.


End file.
